MYANMAR’S military junta today dissolved dozens of opposition parties including that of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The regime said that the parties had failed to meet a registration deadline ahead of forthcoming elections.

Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was one of 40 parties ordered dissolved in an official announcement by the election commission published today. 

The NLD, which governed Myanmar with overwhelming majorities in Parliament from 2015 to 2021 before being overthrown by the military, had already announced that it would not register, denouncing the promised polls as a sham.

The party, and other critics, say the still-unscheduled polls will be neither free nor fair in a military-ruled country that has shut free media and arrested most of the leaders of Ms Suu Kyi’s party.

The NLD won a landslide victory in the November 2020 election, but in February 2021, the army blocked all elected lawmakers from taking their seats in Parliament and seized power, detaining top members of Ms Suu Kyi’s government and party.

Ms Suu Kyi is serving prison sentences totalling 33 years on charges that her supporters say were contrived to prevent her from participating in politics.

Kyaw Htwe, a member of the NLD’s central working committee, told reporters that the party’s existence does not depend on what the military decides and it “will exist as long as the people support it.”

“The party will continue to fulfil the responsibilities entrusted by the people,” Mr Kyaw Htwe said in a text message.

The new polls had been expected by the end of July, according to the army’s own plans. But in February, the junta announced a six-month extension of its state of emergency, delaying the possible legal date for holding an election. 

A report issued on Tuesday by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank said: “The polls will almost certainly intensify the post-coup conflict as the regime seeks to force them through and resistance groups seek to disrupt them.”

The military regime enacted a new political party registration law in January that makes it difficult for opposition groups to mount a serious challenge to the army’s favoured candidates. 

It sets conditions such as minimum levels of membership and candidates and offices that any party without the backing of the army and its cronies would find hard to meet, especially in the repressive political atmosphere.

The new law required existing political parties to reapply for registration with the election commission by March 28.